DeVita's PHILLIE'S TRILOGY Named Semi Finalist in Burman New Play Award Competition

Award-winning playwright Doug DeVita's dark comedy Phillie's Trilogy was just named a Semi-Finalist in Barrington Stage Company's competition for their first-ever Burman New Play Award, placing in the top 60 out of over 450 submissions.

"I'm always a Semi-Finalist, never a bride" the playwright joked, quickly adding "All kidding aside, I'm beyond thrilled the work was recognized by as great a company as Barrington; the news just made my month!" Other plays of his that have made Semi-Finalist status: Just A Rumor, co-written with Gary Lyons, was a semi-finalist at O'Neill, and more recently his play Upper Division was named a semi-finalist for Normal Avenue's New American Plays series.

Phillie's Trilogy (aka The Phillie Trilogy) has received several awards already; in 2016 it won Scrap Mettle Arts Inaugural Emerging Playwright's Competition, and in 2018 it was given a Fresh Fruit Award of Distinction for "Outstanding Production" for its production at the Fresh Fruit Festival in the summer of 2017.

Press notes describe the work thus: "Growing up gay in the "fabulous" 70s was no picnic for the precocious Phillie McDougal. Through nuns, priests, bullying classmates, parents - and years later the realization his best friend may not be the person he thought she was - he lived to tell the tales, with results no one bargained for. Including him."

When talking about the semi-autobiographical memory play, DeVita muses "People ask me all the time how much of it is true; aside from admitting to having committed the 'inciting incident" in the play - the twelve-year old Phillie slaps a nun after she's slapped him - I keep my mouth shut. Some of it happened, some of it might have happened, and a lot of it I just made up. Only my mother knows for sure, and she's dead."

For more about DeVita and his work, check out his website, www.dougdevitaplays.com, or like his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/dougdevitaplays/. His plays are also on https://newplayexchange.org.